The God Codex

24. Thirst

BOOK OF MIA: 2081

Chapter 24: Thirst

I drag the dead weight of the man who was refusing to walk anymore. The Elite soldier we decided to bring with us — or I decided. The decision wasn't taken lightly. Somehow, I could hack into his system and disable his outgoing signals so Hill could no longer track him, and track us by default. I say 'hack' in a loose sense of the term. I know little about hacking and coding. It was never my field of interest nor strength, but just after slapping the cuffs on the guy, I remembered I had an updated program with the ability of a genius coder or programmer. Upon contact, I upgraded Nate's system, overtaking and rewriting it like a virus, hadn't I? Perhaps I could do it again?

So, earlier, as we sat on a dead log on that forest floor, trying to ignore the pile of bodies we'd set to the side so we didn't have to look at it, I had toyed with the idea — of hacking Hill's soldier.

Why was there a pile of bodies we were trying not to look at? Well, it came from me not wanting to help Nate cope. So he didn't have to look at the grotesque field, and look pretty green. He'd looked greener still when I asked him to help me pile them to the side. In fact, it was the still lingering terror behind his gorgeous eyes — terror I had inflicted — that I couldn't take any longer. Waiting for those brown eyes to flicker over to the bodies dotting the area and a silent scream sounding in his head.

All that condemning. I couldn't take it, so I'd suggested, "We should keep moving," trying to pull Nate's attention back to me. To my face. Eyes on me! But they could only linger on mine momentarily before darting away. Like he wanted to look at me, but he couldn't, which hurt — a lot. But I suppose I can't think about that now. Nate and I can never be more than friends. Especially now. One, I was his sister — though that woman could have lied — and worse yet, I was this dangerous little murderer in his eyes. I did it in self defence, for survival — OMG! I get why it's called survival mode now — but none of that mattered.

Nate saw red every time his eyes flickered over to the one soldier still alive. The guy who watched us, unwavering, ever since he woke a few minutes earlier. His eyes, too, darted over to his colleagues' bodies, and back to mine, laced with fear of a man who knew what I could do, and it freaked him out. Which freaked me out. I was still the same Mia — wasn't I?

"What about him?" Nate had whispered, sitting there on that log beside me, looking like all he wanted to do was scoot away from me. I could sense what he had wanted to say, but couldn't: 'Are you going to kill him too?'

No, Nate. No. I wasn't going to kill him too, or anyone. In fact, the killing hadn't ever been part of my plan. But, regret, I couldn't say what I had wanted to either — because he had never asked out loud, had he?

"We can't take him with us..." he had mumbled then. "She will be watching. Listening."

She. Dr Hill.

No. We couldn't take the soldier with us, not the way he was. We couldn't risk Hill setting up another ambush, with twice the number of soldiers next time. But I really didn't have the heart to turn survival mode back on and let her, the scary me, if it's even me, eliminate the last remaining threat.

"Maybe I can—" I had stepped in front of the soldier, giving him a full view of me. He stared, his eye contact strong. I wanted to look away, so I did. At the bodies. "Granddad?" I whispered, not wanting to take the chance that Hill could be listening. I did not want her to know he was home in my head. His entire working mind, his genius, his research — in my head.

"Yes, shorty," he replied.

Excuse me, who are you calling shorty? I had turned away from the soldier. The conversation I was about to have with the old man wasn't something I wanted an Elite to be privy to, and not just because he was Hill's lackey.